


In Plain Sight

by tinylilremus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, mentions of scarring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 02:58:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21228662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinylilremus/pseuds/tinylilremus
Summary: Jester is the only member of the Mighty Nein who doesn't have a soul mark – which is really annoying because she's dreamt about it for most of her life. But sometimes the things you're looking for are right in front of your nose the whole time.Or, in Jester's case, on the side of your right horn.





	In Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea kicking around for most of the year and finally decided to write it (even though I'm suuuper far behind on Critical Role). If this is super inaccurate to where they are in the story, I apologise. ♥

Jester Lavorre didn’t have a soul mark – which was totally cool with her, by the way. It totally didn’t matter that Fjord had a symbol on his ribcage that looked oddly like the symbol of the Wildmother or that Beau had a shape that looked like a tiny set of wings. It didn’t even matter that Nott still had her soul mark even in her goblin body. She was happy for them all. She really was.

But when she was honest with herself, when her happy façade faded at the end of the day just before finally giving in to sleep, she had to admit, it kind of sucked to be the only one to not have one.

She’d always dreamed about the day she’d get her mark. She used to sit with her mama for hours tracing the three perfect circles on the side of her scarlet wrist, asking her about the man with the matching mark.

“Is it my dad?” she’d ask, already knowing the answer.

“Now, Jester, I’m sure I’ve told you all this before,” her mama would reply with a small laugh.

“I want to hear it again. Please, Mama. It’s so tragically romantic the way you tell it.”

And, relenting as she always did, she would comb Jester’s hair and tell her again of the dashing sailor who had the same shapes on his forearm as the ones on her wrist – of what looked like the beginning of their beautiful life together and the way he left without saying goodbye, never to be seen again.

“So you see, my Sapphire, even though a soul mark is a beautiful thing to have, it is not the only love in this world. I still have you and Blud and all of my other wonderful friends here at the Chateau. What more could I need?”

Despite her mom’s story and the moral she attached to it, despite knowing that it wasn’t the be-all and end-all of life, Jester eagerly counted down the days to her sixteenth birthday, the day when most people received their marks. She stayed up all night and as soon as the moon was at its highest in the sky, she looked everywhere for her mark and was dismayed when she could not find it.

It was disappointing, but Jester had kept diligently searching, determined that it was possibly just a faint blue and therefore wouldn’t show up on her skin properly. She scanned each of the freckles on her face, arms and torso, scrutinising them for any sign that they were an abnormal shape, but so far they had all seemed like fairly standard freckles to her.

In all of her prayers to the Traveller, she begged for a mark and if she already had it, for him to show her where it was, but though he usually gave her an answer for everything she asked, this was the one topic where he didn’t say a word.

Eventually, she gave up looking entirely. By the day her mom sent her away from the Chateau for safety after her latest ill-advised prank had got her into more trouble than usual, Jester was convinced she was one of the unlucky people who didn’t have one. If she hadn’t found it by the time she was out in the world finally having the adventure she had always dreamed about, then it was clear that a soul mark wasn’t on the cards for her.

She’d tried not to let it weigh her down – after all, she was about to see more of the world than she had ever thought she’d get to see. There were far more exciting and diverting things to be thinking about.

But it was not long after that that she had met the handsome Fjord and all of her determination to distract herself from the business of soul marks seemed to disappear. As she had not seen any apparent soul marks on him, it was difficult to not get her hopes up again. She hadn’t known him for long and knew that it was far too early to be thinking of anything close to a relationship, but there was no denying that he was wonderful and surely if he also didn’t have a mark, he wouldn’t be looking for anyone in particular. She had a chance.

Her hopes were dampened, however, when she saw his mark while trying not to sneak glances at him when they paused to take a small dip in one of the rivers on their way into the Empire. On his ribcage was the symbol of some deity that Jester knew she should know from her studies, but that didn’t matter all that much to her either way because it wasn’t the symbol of the Traveller. Her disappointed sigh at the discovery did nothing to alleviate her feelings for Fjord and, in fact, this new complication made them immensely more difficult to deal with.

When Caduceus, an actual Cleric of the Wildmother, came along, Jester knew it was hopeless, and it didn’t help to look to the rest of the party for another option. She’d also long since worked out that Beau’s wings were shared with Yasha and that Nott’s little spiral was shared with someone far away. She knew Caleb had a mark too, he’d told them as much, but as he wouldn’t let them see it, Jester figured it had something to do with the Astrid he’d talked about when they were dancing in Hupperdook. It was an endless source of curiosity for her, of course, but she’d learned by now that Caleb would tell them what he was comfortable sharing in his own time.

That meant that as lovely as it was that everyone in their small party had a soulmate, Jester didn’t, and though she put on a brave face, it was something that worried her. She knew there were other people in the world that never got their soul marks and that still found love and lived long happy lives together, but to find someone who wasn’t holding out for the person who matched their mark – someone who would take a chance on a person fate had not picked out for them – was a pretty tall order.

Jester had made her peace with it as best she could, trying instead to focus on the things she did have: a kickass group of friends whom she would happily die for, a powerful deity who had pretty much told her that she was his favourite, and more adventure than she could have ever hoped for.

These were the things occupying her mind as she sat on her bed one uneventful evening. While Nott was on the bed behind her, styling her hair, Caleb sat on the floor nearby, head buried in a book. It wasn’t strange to have him in her room busying himself with his own things. She knew that even though he usually needed somewhere peaceful to think, he also didn’t always want to be alone and Nott and Jester were normally his go-to people when he was in one of those moods.

Jester personally loved having Caleb around – more so than usual lately. She didn’t know when she’d started really taking notice of every time he walked into a room or found herself hoping that he’d look her way with one of those rare smiles, but it was certainly happening more frequently these days. Even as she sat on her bed, angled slightly away from him, she could feel his presence a few feet away and it made her heart skitter pleasantly.

She wasn’t stupid, of course. She recognised the signs of falling in love. It was just a pity that it was to someone who was still so heartbroken about the soulmate he’d lost to the Empire all those years ago.

Jester pushed the thought from her mind. She and Nott had been having a lovely chat about what she should paint in her and Yeza’s room and the last thing she needed was to ruin it by getting gloomy about her feelings again.

“I was mostly thinking of lots of green and a blue sky – to remind him of Felderwin. I know he’s missing it terribly at the moment. And then maybe also –“

Nott paused in a way that made Jester fear that something had just gone wrong with her hair. Even Caleb looked up from his book curiously.

“What is it? Is everything okay?” she asked, reaching up to feel what might have happened.

“Everything’s fine, it’s just… Jes, how long have you had that star on your horn?”

“What star?” she asked, feeling her horns up and down. There was nothing out of the ordinary as far as she could tell. There were the usual indents and bumps, but no new star from what she could feel. “I can’t feel anything.”

“I swear it’s there,” said Nott. “If only you could… hold on, that’s it. Caleb, could you toss me a piece of your chalk?”

Caleb was staring at the two of them dumbstruck and didn’t tear his eyes away even as he reached into his components pouch for a bit of chalk. Jester’s heart was hammering against her ribcage. If Nott was right about the star, this could be it. This could be the mark that she’d been looking for all of these years, hidden in plain sight the whole time. She felt Nott rub the chalk over her horn, blow the excess dust away and wipe carefully around the edges of the indent that Jester had come to know so well but had never thought about twice, even through all of her years of nervously fidgeting with her horns.

“Caleb, that’s definitely a seven-pointed star, right?” said Nott, turning Jester’s head gently so he could see it better.

“Ja, that’s… that’s a star,” he said, his voice trembling slightly.

“Holy shit, holy shit, I want to see!” she said with the excitement in her voice barely contained as she dashed towards the small mirror on her dresser. Sure enough, as she held up the reflective glass, she saw a perfect seven-pointed star, stark white against the deep blue of her horns. She never would have seen it there herself unless Nott had pointed it out. “Oh my god, you guys. I think this is it. I think this is actually my soul mark.”

“Oh, Jes, I’m so happy for you!” said Nott crossing the room to hug her tightly. “You’ve been putting on such a brave face, but I know how much you wanted a mark. Turns out you’ve had one the whole time, we just couldn’t see it. Caleb, isn’t that great?”

Nott turned to Caleb, who was now standing, still staring at Jester with wide eyes. Nott cleared her throat.

“Oh shit, you know what? I think I hear Yeza calling, so I’d better bounce,” she said, despite the house being almost entirely silent. “Coming, sweetie!”

And before either of them could say anything, Nott was scurrying out of the room and the two of them were alone.

“It really has seven points?” Caleb asked, taking a step closer to Jester to get a better look. Jester’s heart, which was already racing seemed to somehow speed up at the sudden proximity.

“Yeah,” said Jester, feeling out of breath. “Yeah, I counted.”

With shaking hands, Caleb rolled up the sleeve on his left arm so that Jester had a good view of all the scars he had kept hidden for so long.

“I don’t know if you can see, but if you look closely, you should be able to make out half of a seven-pointed star,” said Caleb. “Trent Ikithon, he… well when we were going through our training with the crystals, he drove one of them through my mark. To this day I still don’t know if it was on purpose or not. Either way, at the time it devastated me.”

Caleb took a step closer and Jester momentarily forgot how to breathe.

“I didn’t have much hope that I would ever find the person that matched my mark with it being this damaged, but, as it turns out, she’s been right in front of me all this time.”

Jester tentatively took Caleb’s arm in her hands, scanning the scarred surface until her eyes locked onto a large, but obscured star-shaped mark. Her eyes then snapped up to meet Caleb’s and though he looked terrified, there was something in his eyes that looked a lot like hope, and Jester was sure that her eyes must be telling Caleb the same thing because that was all that was coursing through her body right now – just white-hot, radiant hope.

Without any thought as to whether it was too sudden or impulsive or reckless, Jester stood on her toes to close the last of the distance between them and kissed Caleb, relieved when Caleb’s lips moved against hers, parting slightly to deepen it. His arms wrapped around her and for the first time since she had left Nicodranas all those months ago, Jester felt like she was home.

When Caleb pulled back, wearing a smile that brightened the whole room, Jester rested her head against his chest, trying to stifle the overjoyed giggles that were threatening to take over.

“You know, Caleb, if I could have chosen anyone for it to be, it would have been you,” she said, and the arms around her tightened.

“Me too,” Caleb replied, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I am very grateful that fate felt the same way.”

“Where do we go from here?” asked Jester, looking up at Caleb.

“Well first things first, I want to make my _verdammt_ mark more obvious,” laughed Caleb. “I hear you’re a dab hand at tattoos? Perhaps you could help with that?”

“Oh my god, Caleb, are you going to let me tattoo you?” she asked, feeling the bubbling joy now threatening to spill over. “Like for real?”

“Ja,” Caleb replied with a soft chuckle. “I know this means just as much to you as it does to me, and I would very much like to see my star back to normal.”

“I would like to see my star at all.” Jester regarded Caleb for a moment. “Do you think you could fill mine in with white paint?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Caleb. “Though I’m not sure how tidy it will be.”

“You’ll do great,” Jester replied, standing on her toes to kiss him again but not quite managing to do so because at that moment Nott came back into the room.

“Don’t mind me. I definitely wasn’t listening to everything you just said,” she said, the sly grin on her face communicating the complete opposite. “I just realised I forgot my boots.”

Caleb rolled his eyes, but he was still grinning.

After retrieving her shoes, she gave them both a proud look before actually leaving for her room this time. Caleb and Jester both laughed giddily. She was sure the feelings of relief and sheer happiness were just as overwhelming for him as they were for her.

In a moment Jester would get out her tattooing implements and Caleb would try his hand at painting, but for now, they just enjoyed the moment, thrilled that after all the years of looking and hoping, their search was over.

It was difficult to summarise her message to her mom that evening, but after some practice, she thought she had it.

“Hi, Mama. My mark was on my damn horn the whole time. And I’ve found him. It’s Caleb. I love you and miss you.”

Her mom sounded as happy as she felt.

“Oh my sweet Jester, I am so happy for you. The next time you’re home we will celebrate. I love and miss you too.”

Jester, who had left the mirror on her nightstand, took one last look at the now stark-white star on her horn before blowing out her candle to sleep the happiest she had in years.


End file.
